Here’s a movie on the must see list for all who agonise over the culture of bullying and the immediate question of intervention in Libya. This review of Hævnen (In a better world) (Danish – English subtitles) gives some background: Kids learning violence – Eureka Street.

Recent viral video clips of schoolyard bullying remind me of my eight-year-old bespectacled self quoting Gandhi as the local bully shaped up for his fun. I also remember well how, some two years later, I momentarily snapped out of my pacific stance and the bully very quickly found himself bleeding and stunned on the asphalt. I was never bothered again, and I sometimes like to think that was my true “turning the other cheek” moment – asserting my equal worth with those who believed physical might was right. On the other hand, I still think I let some standard down and I feel ambivalence about this boyhood episode.

Bottom line – managing one’s response to violence is not simple. Whether it’s working out how to respond to the murderous Quadaffi’s of this world (but why not other state sanctioned bullies like Mugabe?) or the more domestic kind, we who preach and practice non-violence somehow have to steer through this ambiguity if we are to retain our sanity.

If you want to try out a promising exercise project, click on the link. I recently remarked that regularly completing “postaday”, challenging as it is, is easier than trying to maintain an exercise routine. Well, seems like someone overheard, ‘cos the WordPress mob want us to run 5km on April 12th. Seems like all their tech-heads are instigating the challenge and inviting the blogging community to join in. Seeing as I’ve been procrastinating about using a recently acquired tome called Perth’s Best Bush, Coast & City Walks, their challenge has created a minor stirring within. On the dignified side of 60, I decline to run the 5km, but I will walk it and even deign to begin a regular series of routes – easy around here with undulating and flat areas. MapMyWalk has enough geeky features to keep things interesting, so I’ll fossick around in my desk drawer, extract the pedometer, and start giving it a shot. After all, temperature is down to a pleasant range of 32-34º C these days.

One gets tired of battling the sound bites, but for the sake of the latest casualty, a 19 year old Afghan kid who could not stand or understand his detention any longer, I offer the following:Can you guess which is Australia’s graph line without looking at the legend?

We are not being inundated. We are not under siege. Little has changed over the decade. And they are not illegals – they are asylum seekers and have the right under international conventions to have their claims tested and processed under humane and compassionate conditions.

I select as references these “middle of the road” organisations that are not regarded as politically aligned, with the faint hope that some readers who are convinced otherwise may at least read and consider – at least for the sake of a 19 year old Afghan whose life tragically ended in the land to which he came to find peace.

This thoughtful article reflects some of the healthy tensions in my own church community comprising robust and articulate adherents across the whole range of the political spectrum. Having just entered a solar-energy package that benefits both our local church and its adherents through our environmental policy (and the pragmatic demands of fiscal realities), I guess we lean more to green. But the fact that the politically more conservative among us can support green decisions that make good sense to them (and vice versa) demonstrates that there are community contexts where media promoted political divides are continually breached. Would that this was reflected in parliament and that sound bi-partisan policy could be debated and enacted on a range of issues that are now polarised and entrenched along party lines.

Both happen once in a blue moon. Must be a blue moon tonight ‘cos they clash. Our street Christmas party is late because this is the first Sunday we’re all here at the same time – yep, since Christmas 2010! PeaceChurch happens when we have something significant to process and that was scheduled for tonight as well. We want to to take the Reconciliation Action Plan a little further now that the Notice of Intention has been lodged with Reconciliation Australia. Sounds like a lot of rigmarole, but it means our efforts to engage in the indigenous reconciliation process are gaining some traction – even if it only means integrating celebration of significant events into the church program and advancing local education and communication opportunities. The two clashing events may, in the end, have a lot to do with each other (and we can attend both events tonight as the times are staggered).

In correspondence with an Orthodox priest some years ago, I was fascinated to learn that the encounter between Jesus and the Samaritan woman was well commemorated on her saint’s feast day.

This gospel character that is often painted in misogynist terms from the pulpit is actually regarded by the ancient church as St Photini, “the Enlightened One” and “equal -among-the-Apostles”.

I, as a man among women of many congregations, find this very liberating. Read John 4 again, not focusing on “ooooh! she had 5 husbands and she’s de facto now!” – but that she was able to step beyond culturally conditioned boundaries to engage in lively repartee with a Jewish rabbi and receive and recognise the affirmation of an identity that she could joyfully announce to the rest of her community.

The annual family ritual gets under way – but without three of us right now because of teething problems with our ISP. We (at least my long suffering brother – g’day Al) kept a manual Excel chart of the 20 or so rounds with weekly and cumulative results. Each Friday we’d email our picks to him and he would diligently do the data entry. Interstate interaction grew pretty intense throughout the AFL season. Last year we abandoned the spreadsheet and let the AFL website host a “private competition” for us. Advantage – my bro was let off all the hack work, and, as long as folk signed up and sent their entries in, it hummed along. Disadvantage – the manual method included more tippers simply because Al used to chase up strays and goad them to put their entries in, making judicious allowances for latecomers and mis-entries. Last year was clinical, clean and lean – for not all, especially the Luddites among us, signed up. We also lost the banter and interaction on the way through. Trying it again this year – but at the opening of the season I can’t even log on to the site to see who’s signed up and who they’ve picked. What’s more I haven’t even been able to enter my household picks! Even worse, I picked the exact winning margin for the first game!

So I’m proposing to my patient and understanding family that we run a hybrid this year. I’ll do a spreadsheet and enter picks as well as using the AFL site (if and when I can get into it). If someone sends me a weekly screenshot of the results on the site – we can run them side by side.
“Never say die ’til a dead horse kicks you” is one of the memorable sayings my grandmother brought out from the old country!

[Edit: internet problem fixed and we’ve been able lodge our picks. So notionally we’re giving everyone a 3 game handicap!]

How good is this? The only day I couldn’t post because of no access to ISP server at my end, I post a retrospective post today – daring postaday2011 to include it without penalty – then, while reading my email backlog, I come across this unsolicited gift of grace from WordPress…

WordPress.com had some server issues earlier today, which made it impossible to post or even draft posts for some time.

As a result, everyone participating in Post A Day can take a deep breath. Simply do a make-up post tomorrow, or if it’s not too late now, get your post up today.

Sorry for the inconvenience. If you want details on what happened, or to get real time updates on WordPress.com status, follow @wordpressdotcom on twitter, or make sure to follow @postaday, as we try to retweet their updates.

Synchronicity? Or just a lucky break?

By the way, my server issues are almost resolved. Back to normal (whatever that is) blogging tomorrow!

Let me just clear some meeting dates first – uh, no access to calendar.
Well, how about ordering that printer ink that’s due – oh, can’t logon to supplier.
OK, I need to get that info on the solar panels – darn, web page not cached.
What about that research for tonight’s meeting, Where’s that book? – in some pile somewhere – how much easier if I could just Google what I want.
I need to phone David – and I’ve ditched the hard copy white pages in favour of the IT version which, of course, is now not available to me until tomorrow.
The electricity bill is due today but I can’t transfer the funds.
Postaday deadline approaching but can’t load it up!

That will teach me. Brag about posting every day and approaching day 80 and my internet goes down! won’t be up until the end of the week. Who would have thought swapping an ISP belonging to the same company could be so complicated. Anyway, made it today with this gripe having found a wifi hotspot that is very slow. So that’s it for today and I’m still on track!